


What I'm Looking For

by lou_angel



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Memories of deaths in past lives, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:47:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lou_angel/pseuds/lou_angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur isn’t supposed to remember that he’s lived before. But this time, he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I'm Looking For

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2009 - so no spoilers for Merlin past S2.  
> Originally posted on my LJ account

Arthur isn’t supposed to remember. He’s supposed to grow up blissfully unaware that he’d existed before this life and with no idea that one day he will be called upon to save the world again. He’s supposed to stay that way until he’s needed, when his pasts and his present will meet and he will _know_ and they will unite as he moves forwards to his end and his future beyond.

He’s not supposed to remember.

But this time...he does.

~

When Arthur was a child he regularly rode into battle during playtime at school, playing knights or soldiers, defeating all manner of magical evil beasties and rescuing the princess just as the bell went. 

He didn’t even complain when the girls insisted that he had to marry the princess now he’d rescued her and went through the fake playtime weddings with barely a grimace to indicate how gross he found the whole thing. Like most small boys, he didn’t know why knights and princes were rewarded with _girls_ instead of something cool. Like a new sword. Or a puppy.

Then as he got a bit older, playtimes became break times and, instead of running around, they’d slouch on steps shaking cans of coke and spraying it everywhere, when boys _were_ actually interested in girls and so, peculiarly, they split from them and ogled them from afar, _then_ Arthur’s knight fantasies migrated from childhood games to dreams and became far more real.

He’d dream of training. Seemingly endless hours of marching and riding about in heavy armour; swinging swords, throwing spears. And when he woke up, he was tired and he ached and every detail of his dream would remain in startling colour.

Then he’d dream of fighting. Tournaments first, then minor skirmishes, until he’d fall asleep and appear in the midst of battle, the epicentre of some great war he knew he had to win and he’d _fight_ ; he’d fight through the misty early mornings and the splattering of rain; he’d fight in the sun and through the sleet. He’d feel the heat of his armour; hear the clash of metal upon metal, the whinnying of the horses and the groans of the fallen. He’d smell the stale sweat, the blood, the death, and he’d wake with an abject feeling of misery and loss he couldn’t shake.

And one night, when Arthur and his knights were floundering in battle and he was wearied and worried, a man appeared at his side as if by magic, and at once he felt renewed and the flutter of something he couldn’t identify at the time but he later realised was hope and he _pushed_. He drove forward with vigour and they’d won.

From then on, Arthur kept glimpsing the man, only briefly in the midst of battle but out of the corner of his eye he’d see the lithe form dashing across the battlefield at an almost impossible speed. Or he’d recognise the man’s ears poking out through his ridiculous haircut. Or occasionally, he’d look up into the bright blue eyes that sometimes seemed to glitter gold. But the man was always there. Unlike the rest of the people in Arthur’s dreams who often faded to faceless, nameless blurs in the morning light, this man remained in perfect clarity through waking and sleeping hours and Arthur knew that he couldn’t just be a dream. This man was _real_. This man had a name and one day Arthur would remember it. It was there, somewhere, in the recesses of his brain, but every time Arthur tried to concentrate on it, the memory slipped away, always hovering just slightly out of reach.

As time went on, so did the dreams and Arthur saw his armour change, his weapons change, warfare changed, until he no longer fought with a sword but with a musket and battles were smoky and noisy with the sound of gunfire. He was still him, but different, reinvented, a renewed, reinvigorated body for a new war. 

And still there, ever present, was the man, Arthur’s friend, unchanged and unmarked and undefeated.

Time shifted onwards and Arthur grew, no longer a young boy but a young man on the cusp of adulthood who spent his waking hours cramming for exams and tapping away at the computer, drafting essay after essay as he neared that wonderful age of eighteen when he could leave such studies behind him. But every night, he fell into bed and still dreamt of fighting.

He’d moved on again. Still fighting with a gun, but a rifle this time, and actual fighting was minimal giving way instead to monotonous days of hiding in damp, muddy trenches, avoiding the rats and the flies and the lice and scratching pathetic, dishonestly cheerful missives to those he’d left at home. And so it went for several days, until one night he curled up in bed and closed his eyes, falling into his dream to be confronted by a greenish, yellowy cloud slowly drifting across the wasteland between his trench and the enemy’s, and he’d shouted loudly, sounding an alarm which was echoed on gongs up and down the trench as the men scrabbled madly into gas masks and hoods. Amidst the chaos, Arthur saw a young soldier, no more than a boy, who was staring unblinkingly at him, paralysed in fear. Without hesitation, Arthur pushed through the swirling mass of soldiers towards him and yanked the boy’s respirator over his head before ordering him to evacuate. 

As Arthur fumbled for his own mask, he realised he was too late and dipped out of sight into the dugout clutching at his throat. He felt like he was burning from inside, and he slumped against the muddy wall, choking.

Then he was there. The man, his friend, loomed over him with a frown, gentle hands on him, pulling him into a more comfortable position. Arthur realised he wasn’t wearing a mask either, and tried to order him away.

“Don’t be stupid, Arthur,” the man said, “I’m not going to leave you.”

It felt like hours, but was actually only a few minutes before Arthur coughed, sputtering, feeling a frothing and a gurgling in his lungs that was pushing it’s way up his throat. “My men…” he managed to choke.

“You did brilliantly,” the man said, stroking Arthur’s hair. 

Arthur tried to swallow, but it hurt.

“Arthur?” the man said gently and Arthur forced his eyes open, looking at his friend’s wet face. “It’s time to go now.”

Arthur relaxed, and for the first time in these dreams, he was no longer a participant, but an observer. He was drifting slowly away, hovering, he could see himself sprawled on the sodden floor with his head in the other man’s lap. The man was holding him and rocking him slowly as Arthur felt, heard a loud noise, like a rushing wind, and he slowly floated higher and higher until he suddenly woke in his bed, choking and gasping and clutching at his sheets.

And he didn’t dream of fighting again.

~

It wasn’t that he didn’t dream anymore. It was just that his dreams were different.

At first, they were vague. Blurry domesticated snapshots in which Arthur was a prince and his friend was his servant and there was a castle full of other people that Arthur tolerated, and then largely ignored and forgot about when he awoke. 

He’d dream of a feast, or a celebration, or a meeting ( _that_ was one of the most boring dreams he’d ever had) or of hunting in the woods. Mundane, ordinary tasks, but always as a prince.

Then the dreams changed again.

~

They were sat in a tree. Arthur wasn’t quite sure how they’d got up there or if it was befitting a prince to be up a tree at all, but sat in a tree they were, his servant-friend leaning nonchalantly against the tree trunk and smiling at him. For the first time, Arthur could look at him properly.

It didn’t really amend Arthur’s opinion of his friend much. His hair and ears were truly absurd, and his eyes were still blue with a strange hint of a golden glow. But Arthur also noticed how pale and chiselled his friend was, looking almost as if he were carved from marble, and yet far too animated, far too warm, far too feeling to ever be made from such a cold and unresisting material. 

Arthur said something and his friend was laughing. Happy, genuine laughter and then Arthur could hear himself laughing too and he was surprised to find that he was happy, happier and more content than he could ever remember in his dreams and in his waking hours, and this sobering thought made him stop abruptly.

His friend had stopped laughing and was looking at him curiously, asking “What is it. Arthur?” and before Arthur realised what he was doing, he had leant forward and pressed a tremulous kiss upon his friends lips.

When Arthur woke, he knew that had been his first kiss.

~

The next few dream-memories were disappointingly vague. Arthur was aware of stolen kisses and soft caresses. Once, he dreamt the slightly disconcerting dream of waking, securely sheltered in his friend’s – well, his lover’s – arms and feeling so utterly complete and comfortable, that when he awoke for real, he immediately felt their loss and mourned them. 

~

He never told anyone about his dreams. He’d shared some of the fighting ones when he was a bit younger, but after a while he even kept those quiet. The dreams of his lover he would not share with anyone. He did acknowledge that the dreams confirmed to him that he really _didn’t_ like girls, although he wasn’t quite sure if he was gay or just that he loved the man in his dreams. He did love him, he knew, and when he found him in this life, he’d never want anyone else.

Arthur refused to even consider the idea that his lover might not exist outside of his dreams.

~

The next time Arthur dreamt, it wasn’t vague at all. He was sprawled in a chair in a room he now easily recognised at his own with his lover kneeling in front of him. Arthur couldn’t help staring at his cock as it slowly, steadily, slipped into his lover’s hot, wet mouth, watching as the dark head bobbed up and down between his thighs.

His lover moved with a seemingly effortless ease, measured, calm and yet Arthur was startling aware of his lover’s hot, greedy mouth, teasing and tasting, taking Arthur in impossibly far until he was mewling and tilting his hips uselessly and without force on the seat. Arthur dug his fingers resolutely into arms of the chair, tried not to buck his hips as his lover hollowed his cheeks and hummed around Arthur’s cock, sending tremors of pleasure pulsating through him as he whimpered shamelessly. 

Arthur dropped his head back against the soft fur cushioning of the chair, shuddering as his lover slid his mouth down all the way down Arthur’s cock, sucking and _swallowing_ until Arthur was almost certain he could see the faces of angels and he cried out, words that he couldn’t hear as his whole body tensed…

He woke alone in his own bed as he came, feeling cheated and slightly dirty, but more certain than ever that his dreams were memories and that he wanted, _needed_ , to find this man.

~

One night, Arthur found himself flat on his back in a royal bed with his ankles hooked over his lover’s shoulders with his lover inside him, and he felt full, but it felt _right_ and he knew, for definite, without any doubt, that this was once real.

Arthur arched his back with a groan, exposing the soft, vulnerable skin of his neck and begged his lover to move, to do something, anything, then gasped as his lover turned his head to press a kiss on his calf muscle and rolled his hips to change the angles of his thrusts.

“Open your eyes, Arthur,” his lover said and Arthur obeyed, not entirely sure when he’d closed them, his eyes drinking in the delicious sight of his lover above him, damp tendrils of hair clinging to his face, reddened lips forming soundless shapes but occasionally managing a grunt or a moan.

Then it was there, his lover’s name, hovering on Arthur’s lips as he wrapped his hand round his own cock and stroked it in unison with the rocking of his lover’s hips. And then he came with a wordless cry, spilling pearlescent streams over his hand and his stomach and mewling appreciatively as his lover found his release with a growl of Arthur’s name within his pliant body before falling limp on top of him, and pressing eager open mouthed kisses upon the exposed golden skin of Arthur’s neck.

When Arthur awoke, feeling satiated and suspiciously sticky, he decided that it was time to be active; he would seek out his elusive lover. Because dreams were no longer enough.

~

And so he searched.

He wandered fruitlessly for years. He tried dating, thought that might help him unearth his lover, but was always dissatisfied and never stayed long enough anywhere to form any permanent attachments.

As his twenty-fifth birthday drew ever closer, Arthur felt his hope drifting further and further away until, just two days before his birthday, he found himself on a train, answering the pleadings of his family to come home.

It was raining when Arthur jumped down from the train onto the isolated station and glanced about looking for shelter. He had almost an hour to wait before his next train. The only other passenger who’d alighted further up the platform was hurrying towards a small shack, so Arthur headed the same way, dragging his suitcase behind him.

“Excuse me,” he muttered as he tried to squeeze into the tiny space.

As Arthur brushed past the other passenger, he felt a shocking jolt tingle up and down his arm and he reeled. His head was suddenly crowded with visions, with sounds, with memories, as all his dreams came crashing back at once in vivid clarity. Whole lives mapped out in painstaking detail from cradle to grave, tumbling and whirling into his head, overtaking him, choking him, consuming him, until his vision blurred and his legs could no longer support him, and Arthur felt himself sink to the ground into blissful darkness.

~

“Come on Arthur, open your eyes.”

When Arthur’s consciousness returned, he was still lying, half-sheltered, on the damp station platform, rain splattering about his feet whilst warm hands gently soothed his hair. He could hear his name being called.

“Arthur.” 

It was an almost tender whisper.

“Arthur, wake up you great prat. I’ve been following you about for _years_ so don’t you _dare_ bail on me now.”

Arthur forced his eyes open to glare at the person insulting him.

He did not expect the sight that greeted him. Kneeling above Arthur, one hand still softly cradling his head was the man he’d spent so long searching for. He returned Arthur’s solemn regard with bright blue eyes, tinged with concern, and relief, and hope.

Arthur moved his arm and closed his hand over the top of the one caressing his face.

“Hi,” said the man softly.

And Arthur remembered everything.

“Merlin.”

~


End file.
